Gary Shelton

So she'll frequently give me a lot of very complicated directions in long-form expository prose. Many times, I am in another room, and she is speaking to me, a very nearly deaf man, in a volume more appropriate to a cartoon duckling.

Note here that to work on a motorhome, a mechanic should be young enough to get back up after crawling under the camper on a creeper. It can take a man my age half an hour just to return to standing position after discovering the bolt I'm trying to loosen is a 9/16, not a 1/2 inch—and on the third-try-is-a-charm principle, it eventually turns out to be a 14mm. You math wizards will realize I just spent an hour and a half loosening one bolt.

I vaguely remember having been assigned something to read and talk about in front of the class. What was it?

My wife seethes. "How can you sit there like that?" It's really very easy, I tell her. If you do it right, the first part to hit the chair should be your butt.

And if they are coming, then you know where they're coming. The same place as all the rest of the tourists: Montana. Which means we finally have to face some paradigm-altering ideas, such as, Is there anyone in the universe that could possibly be worse than Californians?